[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Interviews]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> February 15 2022 **Insider**: [[Peter Beck]] **Source**: [Rocket Lab The State of Space 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9DQlmMQwHk) **Date**: February 15 2022  🔗 Backup Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9DQlmMQwHk ## 🎙️ Transcript >[!hint] Transcript may contain errors or inaccuracies. **Steve Eisenhart:** Well hello, I'm Steve Eisenhart from the Space Foundation, and we're joined for this next segment in the State of Space 2022 by Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. Peter, if you'd like to start by telling just a little bit about the company—you've had some great runs over the last several months—and then from there, we'll roll right into from your perspective, how do you see the state of space in 2022? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, thanks Steve. Look, it's been a wild 2021, that's for sure, and looking forward to 2022. Rocket Lab is a company—I guess we're most well known as a launch vehicle company. We fly the Electron launch vehicle, flown 23 times now, over 100 satellites delivered to orbit. But the other part of our business is our Space Systems part, where we're building spacecraft. We have a mission to the Moon for NASA later this year, a couple of missions to Mars. We're also a fairly significant supplier into the space industry with our recent acquisitions of SolAero, obviously providing solar panels, PSC providing separation systems, ASI software, and of course Sinclair Interplanetary providing reaction wheels and star trackers. So pretty much an end-to-end space company these days, and also publicly traded on the NASDAQ. With respect to 2022 and what I see for the future of that—obviously our company has a bunch of high-profile projects we're looking to execute on this year, but I think more generally as an industry, I think there's a lot of things that are going to occur. I think it's going to be a tremendously exciting year for the industry. There's a number of business plans that are going to be proven, and a number of really exciting ventures and also spacecraft and satellites launched. **Steve Eisenhart:** Great. Well, looking ahead, what would you consider to be the biggest challenge or challenges facing your operating environment that will require the most attention and resources to address? **Peter Beck:** I think—look, COVID is—everyone's sick of it, but it's definitely a huge constrainer, whether it be on supply chain side or just, for us, getting and moving around the world, delivering our customers and customers' payloads. It continues to be a real challenge. I think, more broadly for the space industry, there's so much growth in the space industry that talent is a real throttle for everybody. So I think, not just for us but for everybody, the growth and movement of talent around the world is going to be really, really critical. **Steve Eisenhart:** We've seen over the last year a lot of attention generated in space, a number of high-profile things and activities all the way around. What's the issue or condition that you think is not getting the public attention that it deserves? **Peter Beck:** Well, I mean, we've always been pretty forward-leaning on this one and publicly boisterous on it, and that is orbital debris. I think there's a lot more work to be done there, especially as more and more mega constellations are launched. Orbital debris is really the one thing that there is not a global agreement on and a global plan that everybody can work to. I think it has a potential to be a real handbrake on the growth of the space industry. So that's something I certainly hope that this year gets more attention, and we don't find ourselves in situations that were totally avoidable. **Steve Eisenhart:** Well, as we work through the space industry, we always talk about partnerships and stakeholders, and I would be curious who you consider the stakeholder or partner that you or your organization needs in 2022 to achieve success. **Peter Beck:** Well, I think there's a number of them, really. Obviously, it's very hard to be a successful business without customers, and customers put such tremendous faith in a launch company to ensure that their payloads arrive safely. So customers are always our number one priority. But also, in order to be successful, you need to have a great team. So continuing to expand the Rocket Lab team is going to be critical for us this year as well. And of course, as a publicly traded company, we need great shareholders. So those three things, I think, are critical to pretty much most companies. **Steve Eisenhart:** Well, with a number of exciting things looking ahead, is there an anticipated mission or event that you and your organization are most looking forward to as we go into 2022? **Peter Beck:** Oh man, now you're asking me to pick favorites! I mean, we have so many exciting things going on. Jeepers! First off the rank is probably the CAPSTONE mission to the Moon for NASA. That's going to be a tremendously exciting program. It's been a huge program within the company to get us to the point of getting a vehicle and a spacecraft ready to launch to the Moon. I think that's gonna take center stage for a while. A bunch of big Neutron developments occurring this year, so that will be exciting. And some pretty major moves from our Space Systems group as well. So yeah, so many tremendously exciting things going on, but I think those are probably going to be the highlights. **Steve Eisenhart:** Well, thanks a lot, Peter, and we appreciate your time today and joining us from across the pond there. Any kind of fun comments you'd like to offer in wrapping up today's session? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I mean, here's to 2022. I think it's going to be a tremendously exciting year, not just for us but for a large part of the industry. Let's get some stuff in orbit—it's going to be fun. **Steve Eisenhart:** Sounds good. Thank you very much for joining us today. **Peter Beck:** Thanks.